English religious guilds developed from earlier frith guilds of the early Middle Ages.[1] By Æthelstan's early tenth century reign guild obligations had begun to acquire a distinct religious character, increasingly connecting them with the life of the parish church.[2]
The oldest surviving charter of an English religious guild is from eleventh century, when King Cnut's Scandinavian thegn Orc presented a guildhall to the gyldschipe of Abbotsbury, with the members associated in almsgiving, caring for their sick, burial of the dead, and providing Masses for the souls of deceased members. There was also an annual feast.[3]
Organisation
Originating as lay organizations and almost always led by the laity,[4] were an important part of the expanding patterns of lay participation in the devotional culture of the medieval Church. They were usually attached to parish churches,[5]monasteries or specific saints' cults they acted as intermediaries between laypeople and ecclesiastical institutions. The distinction between religious guilds, fraternities, brotherhoods and confraternities was often blurred in practice[6] and these associations did not follow a uniform institutional model and their distribution, structure and purposes varied across regions.
Functions
These associations were often called guilds, particularly in England, but their purpose is primarily religious rather than social or economic. Religious observance was an important part of medieval guild life for merchant guilds and craft guilds as well as those of primarily a religious purpose.[7]
The guilds combined spiritual obligations—such as funding altar candles,[8] funding members' funerals[9] and liturgical services as well as praying for dead members in purgatory, the centrality of which earned them the description "the poor man's chantry".[10]
There could also be social functions in many guilds, including almsgiving[11] Guilds often supported members in times of illness or hardship as well as supporting deceased members widows and orphans.[12] These guilds were often central in providing mystery plays.[13] There were other more unusual functions, with Birmingham's Guild of the Holy Cross providing a midwife to the inhabitants and the guilds of Wisbech maintaining sea banks and sluices.[12]
Guild activities and festivals
The guild often centered around patronal feast days[14] where after a Mass for the deceased guild members there would be an annual meeting to elect officers and collect subscriptions and often followed by a feast.[10] Members were often expected to try to settle disputes within the guild before going to court[12] with members often expected to support each other against outsiders if there was a court case.[12] There were often requirements that a member would bequeath a proportion of their wealth upon death.[10] Most guild statutes forbade the admission of certain types of public sinner while also insisting on the expulsion of persistent sinners.[12]
Suppression and dissolution
The Dissolution of Colleges Act 1545 was in the last years of HenryVIII's reign as part of the English Reformation. It targeted guilds along with chantries, claiming they misapplied funds and misappropriated lands, and provided that their properties would thenceforth belong to the King for as long as he should live. In conjunction with the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the Act helped to finance the war with France.
Because Henry lived for only two years after the Act was passed, few guilds were closed or their property transferred to him. His young son and successor, King EdwardVI, signed a new Dissolution of Colleges Act 1547, which along with royal decrees suppressed the guilds[6] and seized their assets including guild chapels; it also instituted inquiries to determine all of their possessions.[15]
There was a brief resumption of some of the suppressed guilds in Mary's reign and Catholic restoration in places like Basingstoke,[16] although this was limited by the amount of guild property that had got into private hands.[17]
Westlake, Herbert Francis (1919). The Parish Gilds of Mediæval England. London; New York: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge; Macmillan Company.
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